Editorial: Interim commissioner of DCS should open records on deaths

NEWS SENTINEL EDITORIAL BOARD

3:00 AM, May 16, 2013

Jim Henry, the interim commissioner for the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services, is taking some long-overdue steps to fix the broken agency. He says he is committed to giving more training to DCS investigators and case managers, which is a welcome need considering the details being uncovered about the deaths of children either in DCS custody or whose situations prompted a DCS investigation.

Henry also has promised more openness. We think a good start would be dropping the legal challenge to a media coalition’s request to review records of 200 children who died between 2009 and mid-2012.

Henry, who took over DCS three months ago after former Commissioner Kate O’Day resigned, outlined his initial DCS reforms for the News Sentinel Editorial Board on Friday. That same day in Nashville, Davidson County Chancellor Carol McCoy released 42 records of cases to the media coalition, which is led by the Tennessean and includes the News Sentinel. McCoy also ordered the state to release documentation for 50 additional cases by May 31.

McCoy, who has reviewed the documents, said, “There have been balls dropped by several individuals.” She also said the media coalition’s arguments for release of the documents were “well taken.” Continuing the legal fight is merely delaying the inevitable.

An initial review of 36 of the cases by the Tennessean shows horrific abuse and slipshod documentation.

In one case, DCS had come into contact with a family six times since 2006, on two occasions placing a child from that family in state custody, before a 5-month-old boy was found dead in April 2012. His body was in a hot room inside a mobile home filled with dog feces.

In another case, the newspaper reported, DCS employees did not fill out paperwork for a deceased boy until eight months after his death. Some records were missing legally mandated documentation.

Citing the ongoing litigation, Henry told the News Sentinel he could not discuss the files, but he did talk about the overhaul he has launched within the department. Henry said he is focused on collaborating with other agencies to make sure children don’t fall through cracks in the system, changing the culture of the department, providing better training and improving record-keeping.

Henry also has formed a panel to review the deaths of every child in state custody as well as some deaths of children whose situations had been investigated but are not in state custody. He said DCS would issue an annual report of the panel’s findings and recommendations.

DCS also has revamped its child abuse hotline, and the rate of dropped calls has dropped from 20 percent to less than 4 percent.

Henry has been given high marks by those following DCS developments. Linda O’Neal, executive director of the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth, said he is providing “accountability” and “open, positive leadership.”

Henry deserves the praise for his initial work. Now he should make good on his openness pledge by abandoning DCS’s resistance to making death records available for review.